Disclosure Statement

No one pays me to write this blog or to say particular things in it.
That includes all forms of compensation, including offering to shovel
my walk or tell me that I look like I've lost some weight. I don't run
ads, no one pays me under the table, and I don't sell JOHO t-shirts or
coffee mugs. I don't invest in companies and the couple I did invest in
in went broke a long time ago, so I've got nothing to tout except the
companies and people I'm enthusiastic about. So, what the hell am spending
so much damn time blogging for? Now you've got me all depressed.

How I make money

I make a living by writing, being a marketing consultant, and giving
talks. The percentage each contributes varies wildly over time.

Tech

I use WordPress for my blogs. I intermittently pay Brad Sucks to help with some of the techie stuff. I also really like Brad's music and plug it whenever I can. There is no quid pro quo.

I get a great deal on hosting from a friend of mine, and I'd be happy to say nice things about him
in my blog if he wanted me to because those things would be true. So
far, he hasn't asked.

Business attachments

Clients

I'm not
going to list the companies I'm currently working for because that's
between them and me. There aren't many of them. I will disclose them (and have disclosed them in
the past) if I talk about them on my blog. (None of them has ever asked
me to mention them, btw.)

Typically,
advisory board members get a few stock options if it's a for-profit organization. If one of these companies
hits it big, I expect to make something like a semester's college
tuition. I once made some money this way, but money is not my primary motivation. If I'm on an advisory board, it's because I like what the organization is doing. Sometimes I like it because it's cool and useful technology. More often, I serve as an adviser because I think what the organization is doing could make a difference.

Free books

Authors sometimes send me free copies of their books. Often, explicitly
or implicitly, they are looking for a mention. If I like the book, I
may indeed mention it. If the author is a friend of mine, I'm pretty
likely to mention it — because that's what friends do — and
I'm also much more likely to like it than some book that arrives from
a PR agent. I'm probably not going to tell you that I got a free copy.
Why? Because it doesn't matter and because it makes me feel like I'm
boasting. Also, it reads funny.

Harvard

I'm a Senior Researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. I'm sure that colors my judgment on some issues. You can learn more about the Berkman Center here. (I was a Fellow. There was a title change. Not much else changed, except that I'm now also on the Center's Fellows Advisory Board.)

Conferences

I go to more conferences than I should, but fewer than I used to. I rarely pay the conference fee because either I'm speaking or I wheedle a media pass. I usually pay my travel and hotel expenses, unless I'm getting paid to do a keynote.

Politics

I am a straightforward liberal, of the angry hippie variety.

My positions are totally predictable, including on the need to keep the Internet open, accessible and uncontrolled.

I am an enthusiastic supporter of President Obama.

My promise

Inevitably, I use my judgment. For example, there are times when the
mention is so slight or inocuous that the disclaimer would be out of
place. E.g., I was once on the Microsoft OneNote advisory board, which meant
that I filled out a product survey
for them occasionally. If I wrote something about Microsoft's
digital rights management policy, I probably wouldn't
bother explaining that I was once on an uncompensated advisory board for a different
Microsoft product. I also wouldn't mention that from about 1991-3, when
I worked for Interleaf, I managed that company's marketing relationship
with Microsoft, unless it seemed relevant. Life's too intertwingly. That's
why we make judgment calls.

All I can promise is that I will be honest with you and never write something
I don't believe in because someone is paying me as part of a relationship
you don't know about. Put differently: All I'll hide are the irrelevancies.